Of Tears and Hope
by just like our last
Summary: She is everything she promised herself she would never become. She is a lie, a song, a fragile wish.


**Disclaimer: Characters belong to Dan Schneider**

She is filled with a sense of hopeful anticipation, a blink of insensitive, cold eyes. She is traced over by guilt and masked by sorrow. She is laughing and sweet on the outside, but she is tearful and wondering on the inside. She is everything she promised herself she would never become. She is a lie, a song, a fragile wish.

They look at her, and they see a smiling webshow host with a quirky artist for a brother and two amazing best friends that happen to be in love. They look at her and they see someone happy, someone loved, someone beautiful. But she is none of that.

In the bitter understanding she has of her life, she has decided that she has never been truly happy, and that she never will be. She still does not know exactly why. She thinks maybe it is because she has always blamed herself for her mother's death and her father's absence. She thinks maybe it is because she kept Freddie from Sam for a piece of forever, the forever they deserve together.

She thinks maybe it is just because.

Her lies fall strong and hard, like that time Sam caught her crying and she lied and said she had gotten a bad grade on her test, and Sam had taken her to get a smoothie. She had realized then that she does not deserve Sam, after all the times they had fought, and how she had stolen Freddie from her, even if it was without realization. She does not deserve Freddie and Spencer or the brotherly love they provide to her tattered soul. She does not deserve Gibby and the giddy feeling she gets whenever she is near him. She deserves nothing.

She deserves nothing.

Her heart wanes dull and broken, a protective shield enclosing it, ensuring that she remains, caught between hope and despair, keeping her dying soul only barely alive. A cry for help escapes her glossy lips, her soft face red from tears. She thinks of Freddie's accident, of how he risked his life to save her. He could have been killed, and for what? Her pathetic, worthless existence? She would have never forgiven herself. She still does not forgive herself, for getting him hurt, for taking him from Sam.

She misses him. Her father. She wishes he was home with her, instead of serving the navy thousands of feet under the ocean. Yet she hates herself for longing for his presence when she knows that serving the navy is a far more worthy cause than being home to comfort his pathetic excuse of a daughter.

She hates herself for even being born, because her birth is the reason that her mother is dead, due to birth complications. She wishes her mother was still alive; maybe then her father would not have gone off to the navy, maybe then she would be happier. Not that she deserves it. But she knows that her father and brother do. Her father and brother deserve to have her mother back. And Freddie did not deserve to get hit. And Sam did not deserve to almost fall off that ledge with her.

_It should have been me_, her mind whispers, _it should have been me_.

Tonight she looks down, down, down at the cars zipping by below her, and she ponders jumping. It is not the first time she has done this, but it is the first time she is seriously considering it, as she brushes over all the reasons that her life is no longer worth living. As she hates herself and her life, as she cries and wishes and leans her head far, far over to look down as she cries. A single teardrop falls from her face down, down, down to the street below her, until she can no longer see it. She guesses that it will land on the window of a confused stranger's car, and they will think for a moment that it is raining. And yet the night is clear, the stars blinking at her, daring her to jump.

Daring her.

She steps forward. She climbs up onto the railing and sits, looking down. One swing forward and she will fall. She waits, solemn and still crying softly. All time seems to stop; all hope seems to be lost.

_..._

_I know, you see, somehow the world will change for me__  
><em>_And be so wonderful__  
><em>_Live life, breathe air__  
><em>_I know, somehow we're gonna get there__  
><em>_And feel so wonderful_

Her ringtone breaks the silence, a moment too late.

_"You've reached Shay comma Carly. I'll get back to you as soon as I can. Leave a message."_

_"Hey Carly. It's me, Sam. I don't know why, but something told me to call you and tell you I love you. Call me back when you get the chance."_

A moment too late.


End file.
